Just some books...
No time for a full blog post, but here's my book update:
44. What If It's Us? by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silveda
Two boys meet-cute one New York summer.
It's the summer bore his senior year in high school, and Arthur is interning at the New York office of his mother's law firm. He runs into Ben at the post office and falls hard, but fails to get his name. What ensues is a mad scramble to reconnect, and a whirlwind summer romance.
There is so much promise here, but there are two key elements that prevent it from reaching its potential. The first is that the boys seem so much more mature than their age. I kept having to remind myself that these are sixteen year olds. They have too much money - even the kid who is supposedly 'poor' never seems to have to scrape up some dough. I did grow up poor and I sure couldn't have afforded half the things these kids do. And they have too much freedom. Now granted it's been a looong time since I was 16, but this certainly isn't how I remember those teen years.
Secondly, the boys just sound too much alike. They speak in the same cadence, have the same wit, come back with similar quick one-liners. This quickly became confusing because the alternating chapters are in first person POV: first Arthur, then Ben, then Arthur, etc. I would literally have to backtrack sometimes to see who else was in the scene in order to remind myself if it was Arthur talking (okay, yes, he's referring to his friends back home) or Ben (okay, he's talking to the friend with the crush, must be Ben.) Considering the blurb for the book refers to them as "two very different boys" this is a huge problem.
There were also some very clichéd romance tropes like the ridiculous blown out of proportion argument that ends with one character stomping off. I just expected much more.
1/5 stars
Meets the criteria for Popsugar Book Challenge 16 - question in title
Meets the criteria for Goodreads Book Challenge 03 - authors name includes A,T,Y
374 pages
45. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idle
Quick and dirty autobiography by the musically inclined Python. It was marginally interesting, but ultimately forgettable.
1/5 stars
Does not meet Popsugar/Goodreads criteria
304 pages
46. Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry
A highly classified Russian experiment. A vengeful doctor. An experiment gone awry. This is all it takes to release the zombie plague onto mankind.
I read a sequel short story to this book in one of the Apocalypse Triptych books, and immediately recognized the setting as the farmhouse from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Finding out that Romero had sanctioned the books as unofficial prequels to his classic movie, I immediately had to snatch this one up. (And yes, I've bought the remainder of the series and eagerly await.. erm.. devouring them. Yes, I just did that.)
Creepy and paranoia-inducing, this story introduces the zombie plague to small town Stebbins, Pennsylvania, illustrating with precision detail how the contagion spreads and quickly grows out of control. I loved the steadily mounting tension as small town cops Desdemona Fox and JT Hammond are first on the scene of the initial outbreak and grow more and more desperate as the spread gets out of hand. Throw in reporter Billy Trout and his colleague, who discover the plague's origins and are frantically trying to get the word out as the government swoops down with a quarantine, and you've got the makings of a solid cast of characters. I also loved that Dez is… just not a very nice person. She's not kind, she's got rage issues, she's emotionally immature, but she's a great cop and she's still a hero.
I would have given this a solid five stars, but it loses half a star for a couple of clichéd 'female' moments where Dez breaks dowm/drops to her knees and cries and/or screams. Not that the situation doesn't call for breakdowns, crying, and screaming, but we never see a male character react this way. It took me out of the moment.
4.5/5 stars
Does not meet criteria for Popsugar/Goodreads Challenges
369 pages
Total Books Read: 46/80
Goodreads Book Challenge: 37/52
Popsugar Book Challenge: 28/40
Total Pages Read: 16649 pages
.
44. What If It's Us? by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silveda
Two boys meet-cute one New York summer.
It's the summer bore his senior year in high school, and Arthur is interning at the New York office of his mother's law firm. He runs into Ben at the post office and falls hard, but fails to get his name. What ensues is a mad scramble to reconnect, and a whirlwind summer romance.
There is so much promise here, but there are two key elements that prevent it from reaching its potential. The first is that the boys seem so much more mature than their age. I kept having to remind myself that these are sixteen year olds. They have too much money - even the kid who is supposedly 'poor' never seems to have to scrape up some dough. I did grow up poor and I sure couldn't have afforded half the things these kids do. And they have too much freedom. Now granted it's been a looong time since I was 16, but this certainly isn't how I remember those teen years.
Secondly, the boys just sound too much alike. They speak in the same cadence, have the same wit, come back with similar quick one-liners. This quickly became confusing because the alternating chapters are in first person POV: first Arthur, then Ben, then Arthur, etc. I would literally have to backtrack sometimes to see who else was in the scene in order to remind myself if it was Arthur talking (okay, yes, he's referring to his friends back home) or Ben (okay, he's talking to the friend with the crush, must be Ben.) Considering the blurb for the book refers to them as "two very different boys" this is a huge problem.
There were also some very clichéd romance tropes like the ridiculous blown out of proportion argument that ends with one character stomping off. I just expected much more.
1/5 stars
Meets the criteria for Popsugar Book Challenge 16 - question in title
Meets the criteria for Goodreads Book Challenge 03 - authors name includes A,T,Y
374 pages
45. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idle
Quick and dirty autobiography by the musically inclined Python. It was marginally interesting, but ultimately forgettable.
1/5 stars
Does not meet Popsugar/Goodreads criteria
304 pages
46. Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry
A highly classified Russian experiment. A vengeful doctor. An experiment gone awry. This is all it takes to release the zombie plague onto mankind.
I read a sequel short story to this book in one of the Apocalypse Triptych books, and immediately recognized the setting as the farmhouse from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Finding out that Romero had sanctioned the books as unofficial prequels to his classic movie, I immediately had to snatch this one up. (And yes, I've bought the remainder of the series and eagerly await.. erm.. devouring them. Yes, I just did that.)
Creepy and paranoia-inducing, this story introduces the zombie plague to small town Stebbins, Pennsylvania, illustrating with precision detail how the contagion spreads and quickly grows out of control. I loved the steadily mounting tension as small town cops Desdemona Fox and JT Hammond are first on the scene of the initial outbreak and grow more and more desperate as the spread gets out of hand. Throw in reporter Billy Trout and his colleague, who discover the plague's origins and are frantically trying to get the word out as the government swoops down with a quarantine, and you've got the makings of a solid cast of characters. I also loved that Dez is… just not a very nice person. She's not kind, she's got rage issues, she's emotionally immature, but she's a great cop and she's still a hero.
I would have given this a solid five stars, but it loses half a star for a couple of clichéd 'female' moments where Dez breaks dowm/drops to her knees and cries and/or screams. Not that the situation doesn't call for breakdowns, crying, and screaming, but we never see a male character react this way. It took me out of the moment.
4.5/5 stars
Does not meet criteria for Popsugar/Goodreads Challenges
369 pages
Total Books Read: 46/80
Goodreads Book Challenge: 37/52
Popsugar Book Challenge: 28/40
Total Pages Read: 16649 pages
.